Authors: Sara Craven
must have come as an unwelcome surprise to him.
Her mother's opposition to the marriage had been instant and
hostile.
'You can't marry him,' Mrs Greer said, her face white and pinched.
'A man like that! He must be twice your age, and he's positively
uncouth.'
'He's a writer—a poet.' Davina had tried to reason with her. 'I know
he doesn't correspond with your idea of one— but he's famous
already ...'
'On the strength of two novels and a few poems,' her mother had
sneered. 'A television celebrity—until the next nine-day wonder
comes along, and then he'll soon be forgotten about.'
'Uncle Philip doesn't think so.'
'Of course your uncle would defend him.' Mrs Greer smiled thinly.
'He's his publisher, after all. Oh God, I wish you'd never gone to
that party, then you would never have met him.'
'Oh, but I would.' Davina lifted her head, her eyes shining. 'It was
fate.'
'Fate!' her mother scoffed angrily, and turned away. 'Well, you won't
marry with my consent, Davina.'
'Then we'll marry without it,' Davina said angrily, and saw her
mother flinch. Compunction overcame her then, and she went to
her, laying a hand on her arm. 'Mother, if you would just get to
know Gethyn—properly.'
'As you do, I suppose,' Mrs Greer returned impatiently. 'How long
has this—whirlwind courtship lasted? Three weeks? Do you really
imagine that's a sufficient period of time to find out about a man
with whom you intend to spend the rest of your life? If you must
continue with this —relationship, why not just become engaged? At
least one can withdraw from an engagement honourably before too
much harm is done—but marriage!' Mrs Greer shuddered.
'I don't want to withdraw from it,' Davina said desperately. 'And
neither does Gethyn.'
Her mother's lip curled. 'That I can well understand. He's doing very
well for himself, after all. A miner's son from some obscure pit
village in Wales, marrying his publisher's niece. Another rung on
the ladder from rags to riches. Of course he wants to go through
with it. He'd be a fool not to. No doubt by now someone will have
told him about the money that's to come to you from your father's
estate when you're twenty-five, and that will be an added incentive.'
There was a long silence, and then Davina said huskily,
'That—that's an appalling thing to say.'
'The truth often does hurt,' he mother returned inimically.
Mrs Greer had not attended the ceremony at Caxton Hall a few
days later. Uncle Philip had been there, however, with Gethyn's
agent Alec Marks to act as the other witness. It had been swift and
rather impersonal and very far from the sort of wedding she had
once day-dreamed about when she was younger. Gethyn was
different too in a dark formal suit which contrasted strangely with
the denims and dark roll-collared sweaters she was accustomed to
seeing him wear.
That was what he had been wearing the first time she saw him at
the party Uncle Philip had given to launch his new volume of
poetry. Poems were often considered by publishers to be a drug on
the market, and yet this book would sell, her uncle knew, because
Gethyn Lloyd had written it.
The first thing Davina had thought when she set eyes on him was
that he didn't look at all like the star of the show'. She had been at
many such parties in the past, and writers often, she found, behaved
either with a becoming diffidence or an excessive eagerness to
please when confronted by the media men, or sometimes both. Not
so Gethyn Lloyd.
He hadn't been the tallest man in the room, yet he had seemed so.
There was something about his lean, muscular body, the dark harsh
lines of his face, that made the other men seem positively effete. He
stood a little apart, gazing broodingly into the glass he held, his
dark brows drawn frowningly together above that hawk's beak of a
nose which surely must have been broken at some stage in his
career. Then he had looked up suddenly, so suddenly that she had
been unable to avert her gaze in time, and his cool green eyes had
locked startlingly with hers. And the firm sensual lines of his mouth
had relaxed into a smile—not the hurtful mockery she had come so
painfully to know later—but with a charm that made her heart turn
over.
He came to her side, dealing summarily with a woman journalist
from a popular daily who tried to detain him. His eyes swept over
her, missing nothing, she thought dazedly, from the dark auburn
hair piled smoothly on top of her shapely head to the silver buckles
on the shoes just visible beneath the deep plum velvet trousers.
'I don't know who you are, but I'd like to take you to dinner tonight.'
His voice was low and resonant, with an underlying lilt which was
undeniably attractive.
She smiled. 'Perhaps you'll change your mind when you learn my
identity,' she said lightly. 'I'm Davina Greer.'
He studied her reflectively for a moment, then swung to look at
Philip Greer, deep in conversation at the opposite end of the room.
'Daughter? You're not much alike.'
'Niece—and I'm supposed to resemble my mother's side of the
family.'
'Hm.' That devastating green glance was on her again, assessing the
candour of her hazel eyes under their long sweep of lashes, the high
delicacy of her cheekbones and the sweet vulnerable curve of her
mouth. 'Then I must meet her. They say, don't they, that if you want
to know what your girl will look like in years to come, take a look
at her mother.'
'Do they?' She lifted her brows coolly, trying to conceal the
instinctive tremor that had gone through her when he'd said 'your
girl'.
'I've never heard that before.'
'Oh, I've a fund of such information,' he said softly. 'Stick with me,
lovely, and you could learn a lot.'
She was on her guard instantly, aware that there was an implication
in his words that put them squarely into the category of doubtful
remarks, to be dealt with by cool politeness. She gave him a formal
smile, and changed the subject.
'Will you be in London long, Mr Lloyd?'
'Long enough.' His eyes never left her face. 'And at least until I've
persuaded you to have dinner with me.'
'You're very persistent,' she said helplessly.
'I've been accused of worse things,' he returned laconically. He put
out a finger and lifted her chin slightly, forcing her to look at him.
'What's the matter? Surely I can't be the first man who's fancied
you?'
No, she thought, but you're the first man I've ever—fancied, and I
don't know what to do. I'm frightened.
She smiled again, moved slightly so that his hand was no longer
even fractionally against her skin. 'Well, hardly.'
'So what's the problem, lovely?'
She managed to meet his gaze. 'Nothing, I suppose. Thank you, Mr
Lloyd. I'd like to have dinner with you.'
Which was a tame way to describe this sweet insidious .excitement
which was beginning to take possession of her.
'Good.' He drained the contents of his glass. 'Shall we go?'
• She stared at him. 'But the party—it isn't over yet.'
'It is as far as I'm concerned. I've answered all their questions. Now
I'm leaving them in peace to drink and talk at each other, and that's
what they really want to do. Most of them only came .here today
anyway because someone in the higher echelons suddenly decided
that poetry might be trendy. Besides, there's always a story in
me—a miner's son who can actually string words together like a
real person.'
'That's rather bitter, isn't it?'
'Probably, but it's the way I'm feeling at the moment. In-depth
interviews and expensive whisky seem to affect me like that. I'm
relying on you to exorcise all my evil spirits.'
'That sounds a tall order on such a short acquaintance.' She pulled a
wry face.
'Who said our acquaintance was going to be short?' he said. 'And
you don't have to worry. I think, if you wanted, you could coax wild
beasts and dragons to eat out of your hand if you put your mind to
it.'
She was embarrassed at the personal turn to the conversation and
took refuge in flippancy. 'Even a Welsh dragon?'
He gave her a long look, and she made herself meet it steadily.
'Oh, that most of all, girl,' he said. 'That most of all.'
Somehow she found herself apologising to Uncle Philip for her
early departure and calling goodbyes to the surprised glances which
were noting it around the room.
As they waited for the lift in the corridor, she began to laugh.
'It's far too early for dinner. There won't be a restaurant open.'
'Then we'll walk and talk and generally further our short
acquaintance.' He allowed her to precede him into the lift. The
doors closed noiselessly, shutting them into a tight enclosed world
where they were quite alone.
Davina said breathlessly, 'We need the ground floor. You have to
press the button.'
He slanted a glance at her. 'I've been in lifts before. Why are you so
nervous?'
She moistened her lips. 'I'm not.'
'Don't lie to me, Davina. Not now, not ever. What do you imagine
I'm going to do? Leap on you?'
She felt herself go crimson. 'Of course not,' she denied too quickly.
His lips twisted slightly. 'Then you're far too trusting,' he told her
mockingly, and sent the lift on its way to street level.
She was recalled abruptly back to the present as a child's coloured
ball bounced towards her and she instinctively put out a foot to stop
it. She stood quite still for a moment, assimilating her surroundings,
and telling herself that these things were all in the past now and
could only have the power to hurt her if she allowed them to. But
her eyes were stinging suddenly and she fumbled in her handbag for
her dark glasses, insisting to herself that it was only the sunlight
that was too strong.
She was dazzled now, as she'd been dazzled then, and as she
walked on, the words, 'Too trusting. Too trusting ...' began to sound
a bitter knell in her tired brain.
In the end, she took another taxi and went back to the office. The
publishing firm of Hanson Greer was situated in a quiet street not
far from the Post Office Tower. She pushed open the glass door and
went in with a smile for the receptionist in her panelled cubicle. She
accepted a list of the people who had telephoned her during her
absence and took the lift up to her office.
Her mother had not wanted her to work here, yet at the time it had
seemed a perfectly logical thing to do. Her father had been a
director of the firm until his death, and if she had been a boy, it
would have been quite natural for her to follow him into publishing.
And this was supposed to be the age of equal opportunities, so ...
Besides, Uncle Philip's offer of a job had come just when she
needed it most—when she was looking round desperately for
something to fill this emotional vacuum inside herself, and she had
seized it with relief.
She knew the reason for her mother's opposition, of course. She
was terrified that Davina would be brought into contact with
Gethyn again through her work. But it hadn't happened. For one
thing, as far as she had known until today Gethyn was still in
America, teaching creative writing at some New England college.
And for another, in the two years they had been apart, he had
apparently not produced another manuscript of his own. While he
had been in the States, he had written the screenplay for the
successful film of his first book, A
Power for Good
, but no new
work had been forthcoming from him, and although he had never
discussed it with her, Davina knew this had been a major
disappointment for her uncle.
She went into her small room and sat down with a sigh, her eyes
fixed absently on the scrap of paper in her hand. She really ought to
make a start on returning these calls. One of them at least would
probably be urgent. But the names and numbers kept dancing
meaninglessly in front of her eyes, and eventually she dropped the
piece of paper impatiently into her in-tray to await her attention in
the morning.
Her door opened and the smooth fair head of Jan Preston, her
uncle's secretary, appeared.
'Oh, you are back,' she exclaimed in surprise. 'I've been trying to get